St. George-It's a love/hate kinda thing
I arrived in St. George Thursday after a 10 hour drive out of snowy Fort Collins, CO (we had a foot of the white stuff the day prior). I was psyched to get into town before registration closed, went straight downtown and got that all knocked out. Unfortunately during the arrival/registration process I slightly twisted my left knee as I stopped quick and turned when someone called my name. It was just a little tweak, but I think it would come back into play on Saturday. Since I’d done IMSG in ’10 I didn’t feel the need to recon the bike or run course with the exception of the new Snow Canyon leg. I headed up to Snow Canyon to check out the climb in my car and honestly felt that several of the other early hills on the course would be more challenging. Friday was consumed with a ton of teleconferences for work in between finish packing the transition/morning clothes bags, dropping the bike at Sand Hallow and the run bag at T2. I was fairly distracted with work through all of this and was convinced I’d forgotten something major in one of my bags.
I was traveling solo for this one and got to bed fairly early only to be woken up by a good night call from my 9 yr old. I was dead to the world when she called and struggled to get back to sleep for about 1.5 hrs. Race morning started about 3:30am with a half bottle of ensure, a honey stinger waffle, and a half a cliff bar. I typically have a couple of pieces of toast with honey and peanut butter so I was a little worried about changing things up, but I’d eaten all of the above at some point before, and wasn’t too concerned. I got dressed finished packing my bags and headed out for the shuttle to Sand Hallow.
Swim: 35:26
As I walked in to T1 to set-up prior to the swim I noticed the line for the ONE air compressor provided by the tech team was already massive. Thankfully the guy walking into T1 with me had a pump and offered it up right away. After pumping my tires up and filling my bottles I was pretty much ready to go. T1 closed at 6:30 and my wave didn’t start till 7:30 so I had plenty of time to stand around. I got into my wetsuit pretty early as I was chilly and noticed that my arm sleeves felt a little constricted around the elbows. I’d never worn arm sleeves before and actually hadn’t worn these particular calf sleeves before, but had worn calf sleeves in training.
I think we were the 11th wave into the water. Once I got to deep water I took a nature break to warm up my wetsuit and headed out to the line. The swim start was uneventful and I felt like I got into a good rhythm heading out to the first turn. I pushed pretty hard for the first 300 and then looked for some feet to follow. I couldn’t find someone that was going at my particular pace so I swam from feet to feet as best I could. I was already seeing folks from the other waves in front of us by the first turn buoy. I try to stay right on the buoy line and keep them just to my left throughout the swim. After the turn I got a bit inside finally following some feet that were going at exactly the pace I’d been looking for and I think that cost me a little bit of time. As we neared the 2nd turn toward the shore leg there were lots of folks from the other waves all around, resulting in a little contact as I picked my way through. I tried to keep an even pace and was out of the water in what felt like a pretty good time.
I opted for some help from a wet suit stripper and she struggled a bit getting my suit off my feet. Next time I’m either doing it myself or finding a team doing it in tandem.
T1: 2:43 Bike: 2:43:51
I felt like my transition went pretty smoothly. I was into my cycling shoes quickly, had my helmet and sun glasses on and was running out of transition without any issues. The route took us west toward Hurricane (a change for me from 2010) and up a pretty significant climb. I was pretty chilly in the first few miles and as soon as I started to turn the pedals over I had tightness in my left hip flexor/outside of my quad. This was a first and I’m not sure if it was the knee issue from TH or tight hips/IT bands or what. I tried to massage it, but it felt like it was there to stay. I took it easy on the first couple of climbs and tried to dial my target watts in when we got to the flats. I made the decision as we worked our way over the rollers to St. George that I’d do my best to stretch on the descents once I’d spun out, but otherwise I was going to ride my target watts and let the chips fall where they may with this whole deal going on with my left leg.
The new bike course is in a word AWESOME. Although they claim more climbing per mile than on the 112 mile course it felt really fast. There was a little out and back into a neighborhood on the way back to SG that made for a fast and slightly technical decent. This was the only part of the course I disliked because it got fairly narrow on the exit and less experienced bike handlers were either taking up the middle of the road, or braking heavily causing an accordion effect as you got back on the main course. The ride up Snow Canyon was gorgeous and I did my best to ride steady (the video evidence is at 2:43, 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVMZ498swi8 ) while a lot of others were hammering around me.
I took in a 3hr bottle of Perpetuem (810 cal), 1.5, 16 oz bottles of water, one 24 ounce bottle of Gatorade that I started with, and a half bottle of Perform. This put me at about 370 cal/hour which was my target. I also had 4 Endurolytes per hour on the bike.
I did my best to try and stretch my left leg on the descent back into town, but it was still feeling pretty tight as I hit main street. I got to watch 3 pro men battle it out down the home stretch as I came into T2 and it looked like the pro race finish was fun to watch.
Overall I felt good about the bike. My target wattage was 254 and given the volume of descending on this course I’m not sure I could have gotten there with the gearing that I had without pushing it harder on the hills which would have cost me even more on the run. I’m not really sure I would change too much, although my stomach felt a little sloshy during the first half of the bike and I’m not sure what that was all about.
|
Avg Power: VI: |
215 W 1.09 |
|
Normalized Power (NP): |
233 W |
|
Intensity Factor (IF): |
0.72 |
|
Training Stress Score |
142.8 |
|
Work: |
2,113 |
T2: 3:22 Run: 2:02:37
T2 went pretty smoothly and was psyched that I had remembered to put my Endurolytes in my jersey pocket while still on the bike (missed that one during my IM here). I hit the porta pottie on the way out of T2 as I had to go on the bike, but had perform instead of water in my rear cage leaving me without a way to rinse myself off. The first little bit of the run is flat before you make the turn onto Main St and start to climb out of town and onto Diagonal. I was surprised that my legs didn’t feel too bad despite the pain/tightness that I’d experienced in my left leg on the bike. I was staying on my target pace for this portion of the race and walked the last portion of the aid station as I’d done in training. I took in a small cup of water and a cup of perform at each station. I was also wearing my fuel belt with two 7oz bottles of Gatorade. My plan was to live of the course and try to stick with liquid nutrition as much as possible.
I settled into what felt like a comfortable pace on the first big climb up onto Red Hills. I really hadn’t run hills at all during training and decided to stop trying to figure out what pace I should be at, try to find a rhythm that my legs liked and go with RPE. I felt decent until I made it to the turn-around at the far end of Red Hills. As I started back up that long hill my IT bands in both legs, but particularly my left felt really tight. It wasn’t the sharp debilitating pain that I’d had in the past, it just made my legs feel like lead. I started walking most of each aid station on the way back and walked the 13% grade on the bike path after the tunnel at the Pioneer Pike loop. At this point there is one looooong hill left and then a moderate downhill followed by a shallow climb to the last descent off of Red Hills.
While all sorts of EN teachings were screaming in my head I just didn’t have the mental fortitude today to keep pushing and I spent about a minute walking a portion of the last long hill and the shallow hill before the descent off of Red Hills. I also walked the little kicker up into the golf course loop and had an extended walk through the last aid station on Diagonal. I was in a complete state of self-loathing at this point because you are within 2 miles of the finish, and I couldn’t bring myself to gut it out. I knew I’d gone past my goal time (5-5:15) and I just couldn’t find a way to sack-up and push through the pain in my left leg. I did my best to enjoy the downhill finish and crossed the line at 5:27 and change.
I felt pretty wiped at the finish. . .actually I felt better after the IM here in 2010 than I did today. I spent a few minutes on the ground with my feet up and dumped a bottle of water over my head. My lower back was killing me and my legs were tight all over.
|
3 mi |
3 mi |
26:53 |
3:52:15 |
8:57/mi |
|||
|
5.8 mi |
2.8 mi |
28:57 |
4:21:12 |
10:20/mi |
|||
|
9.6 mi |
3.8 mi |
32:59 |
4:54:11 |
8:40/mi |
|||
|
13.1 mi |
3.5 mi |
33:48 |
5:27:59 |
9:39/mi |
Summary: While I really didn’t have a “bad race” ( I actually PR’d by a little less than a minute on a much tougher course), I didn’t perform on the run the way I wanted to and frankly I’m a bit confounded by it. Clearly the issue I had with my left leg was a contributing factor, but overall my legs felt pretty dead and I was not happy with the amount of walking I did. If you look at my bike numbers I clearly didn’t push too hard there, and I’d run great off the bike during my last RR even though I had a higher IF and NP during the RR than I did here.
I do think the weather was a bit of a factor as I don’t tolerate heat very well and it was in the mid 80’s by the finish. I also have not done a lot of running off the bike and hadn’t done any significant hill running. These are two things I will be doing more of (along with a lot more rolling and some functional strength work) in my final 10 weeks of train-up leading to IMLP. I also think I should have taken in a couple of gels during the run and I’m also going to try a different electrolyte/salt supplement. I’m also going to try a different brand of cooling sleeves during my RR to see if this is something I want to use at IMLP or ditch altogether.
I love the bike and swim course at St. George, but that run is my absolute nemesis. I'm be back, but not till I'm ready to have the run I know I can have on this course.
On a positive note I felt pretty good about my bike overall and my use of the PM for the first time to pace myself during a race. I was also very happy with my transitions which were the smoothest I’ve ever had in any triathlon (I was actually worried I’d forgotten something both times because they went so well).
Comments
Joe - it was great to meet you and who knew you are also a fellow Syracuse alumn! In terms of your run i think you have the right approach. More hill running and doing some running off the bike will help you dial in things before IMLP. Also, some IT band stretching or massaging with the foam roller might help. Beyond that keep in mind this run course is unique in terms of the amount of climbing. I don't have a huge resume of completed races, but i can't believe you will see these same elevation changes on many run courses. You have lots of time between now and LP to get things dialed in. Train hard and i know you will have a great race in IMLP!